The sun flares behind the silos
and the neighborhood wakes
in unison.
Automatic coffee pots start
on time like workers
at government offices.
Showers turn on, full force,
as if trying to scrub off
the dreams’ last trace.
Hydraulic garage doors go up
without a whine, aligning
themselves with silence.
SUVs roll out of the driveways
carrying occupants like royals,
or gangsters, in tinted windows.
Sidewalks are swept clean
as a hospital bed,
after the patient is gone.
Newly planted trees slouch
like sulky children
getting their hair cut.
In the sunlight, the adjacent farm
sits vacant, keeping vigil
for missed harvests.
Someone emerges from behind
the rickety door, and wears
that guilty look of forgetting.